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Batwoman and the Male Gaze
We’re now well into the first season of the CW’s latest superhero show, Batwoman.
A bit of background: Batwoman, civilian name Kate Kane, made her first appearance in her current form in 52 in 2006. There was an earlier version, Kathy Kane, who was introduced as a love interest for Batman because no homo. No, seriously, she was introduced to try and stop people from shipping Btman and Robin. She was removed ten years later because she was a bit redundant, and then reintroduced in Crisis.
Ironically, the modern Batwoman is a lesbian (remember that no homo thing), a Jew (arguably, the writers accidentally made Bruce Wayne Jewish when they established that his maternal cousin was a Jew. They didn’t seem to notice, though), and operates quite independently of her cousin.
Her introduction to the CW was with the clear intent of replacing Arrow, which comes to an end after the Crisis crossover event. Because, welp, we apparently have to have Crisis to introduce Batwoman. In the CW, Bruce is missing presumed, and has been for years. Kate takes over his job as protector of Gotham. In doing so she has to face a very personal nemesis in Alice (in reality, and this is revealed in the pilot, her “dead” twin sister Beth). The show is thus loosely following the storyline of the comics from Detective Comics. In places not so loosely (there’s a couple of points…